Well, I got up this morning figuring I'd probably left y'all in suspense long enough about who I picked as the winner of our dirty pan contest. Some of y'all might think I took too long to get here to the point of announcing it, but that's because I'm old and I just learned to do the Google and I don't learn these things as fast as you all do, dam--t! So, as you young people like to say: Give me a break!
Remember, before Thanksgiving of this year, I had sworn off ever having a thing to do with the Google or with computer machines or cell phones, and with cell phones I still don't so if you happen to be one of my kids reading what I'm writing here, don't you even think about giving me one because I'll sling it right out the window first chance I get and you know it.
But I like doing the Google because it gives me a chance to have my say, though I don't like how it has brought me undue attention from the men, though that could change. You never know.
And I was going to do it yesterday, announce the winner, that is, but I kind of like that boy they put in the White House, the one with the ears and the funny name I can't keep in my mind, and stayed glued in front of the TV all day watching the inauguration and thinking about those little girls bouncing around the White House and what a fine couple he and that wife of his make, and I kept picturing them in the White House in bed having relations with her hanging onto his ears, though I expect they were too worn out last night for that.
So now that I've thrown a wet towel over the heads of those of you who didn't win the contest, and told Arlene to go throw her scrawny self off a cliff, we at last come to the last two pictures, which are of one pan belonging to Karen.
You see that blister in the upper right hand corner of the first picture? When my daughter Lou Ann (who I brought in to help me judge) saw that, she declared that Karen's pan would make a great buffet dish at an all day dinner-on-the-grounds at a leper colony.
In the last picture, which shows the whole pan, Lou Ann said she saw Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch, screaming and hollering about psychiatrists and the medicine they give out, and that the little white squiggle to the right--which you can't see too well in the picture up there, small as it is--was Brooke Shields holding high a butcher knife, riding a white horse, galloping toward Tom Cruise with the clear intent of shutting him the hell up.
Now, if you think what my daughter Lou Ann said does not reflect too well on her sense, you've got company and I'm it. This is not the only example of how Lou Ann seems to have climbed down and left her brain dangling up in the treetops, but I owe it all to her going through the menopause. When she said what she did, I just about snatched the job of judge right out of her hands, but I wanted to go to the store so I let her get on with it.
Well, Lou Ann decided that Karen's pan had the "added value" that contestant Hendersonville Epicurean's pan had, and by that I mean you could see things in it the same way some people claim they see the face of the Lord on a bedsheet, so we had a tie. I could see this going on for another month, so I chimed in and declared Karen's pan the dirtiest of the two.
So, as it turns out, plain ole dirt was the deal breaker, or I guess the tie breaker, and I hereby declare Karen the official winner of the Parade of Pans and the soon-to-be owner of what's called an "advance reader copy" of that book about my life, THE DAYS BETWEEN THE YEARS. Karen is a good picture taker of pretty nature scenes and mushrooms and goats, which you can see by clicking right here: http://www.karenbryantphotography.com/
And for those of you who entered the contest but did not win, I want you to know that you did not send in your pictures of dirty pans in vain. To those of you who arose to the occasion but fell flat on your face, who fought the good fight, but got thrown out of the ring, I don't know what to give you for a consolation prize or what to say except keep in mind you're still in my will, although I have not a penny nor a pot to my name, but I've always heard it's the thought that counts anyhow.
